


Divinity Descent (Reboot)

by Noclue Idunno (NoclueIdunno)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Asexual Hermione Granger, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Character Death, Dark Harry Potter, Drarry Ending, Fictional Religion & Theology, M/M, Obsessive Harry Potter, Possessive Harry Potter, Powerful Draco Malfoy, Powerful Harry Potter, Protective Ron Weasley, Shameless Smut, Top Blaise Zabini, Top Harry Potter, Top Ron Weasley, Villain Harry Potter, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:14:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoclueIdunno/pseuds/Noclue%20Idunno
Summary: Draco Malfoy is a cleric of the Alabaster Library, the seat of religious authority in Gryffindor Empire. Draco's peaceful days of scholarly pursuit are thrown into chaos when he is entangled in a series of plots that threaten not only his own life, but also the world as he knows. With his faithful companions Sir Ronald Weasley and scholar extraordinaire Hermione Granger, Draco embarks on a journey to unravel the false history of his world, pursued by the vengeful and obsessed Knight-Auror Harry Potter.Reboot: A near-blank slate rewriting and re-planning of the fic "Divinity Descent" that I posted five years ago.YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO POST THIS ON WATTPAD OR ANYWHERE ELSE. I NEVER WRITE ON WATTPAD. DEAR READERS, IF YOU SEE THIS STORY ELSEWHERE, PLEASE, REPORT IT, BECAUSE I WRITE ON AO3 AND AO3 ONLY.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 22
Kudos: 62





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling and isn't mine. No copyright infringement intended. I gain nothing from this. This is a fanfiction offered freely to HP fans.

Cedric watched the cleric's skin turning papery, hanging on his skeleton like loose gossamer. A low, tormented groan escaped the cleric's mouth before his body combusted with roaring flames, disintegrating completely into a pile of ash. Cedric felt no breeze, but the ashen remains were carried into the windless air. When the ashes rained down on the mound of corpses in the pit, dead mouths opened and moaned in soul-chilling unison. Soon, bodies began tumbling and pushing on one another, crawling out of the pit. Spears and splinters in hand, innards out, they slowly lined in formation, faces still frozen in the shock of the blows that had ended their lives. Some were days old and had already begun rotting. Cedric's eyes watered from the stench. A soldier next to him turned back and retched violently.

"Steel yourself, soldier," said Cedric, "The commander is watching."

The soldier heaved some more and wiped his mouth, paying no attention to the rancid slime that moistened his gauntlet.

Behind them, a raven-haired man was surveying the scene, green eyes unshaken at the terrible spectacle before him. He approached the soldier and clapped his shoulder. "Are you scared?"

The soldier's answer was reflexive. "No, milord," he replied. Glancing sideways, Cedric noticed the soldier's lips trembling.

"You are right to be scared," the commander said. "I am scared. You are scared. We are here because we know fear. We fear for the lives of our family. We fear for the golden fields of Gryffindor. And that fear is greater than whatever we may see here tonight."

The soldier gulped heavily, but he stood higher and the hold on his spear tightened. When the commander left him, the soldier--and other men surrounding him--were considerably calmer.

The commander's unhesitating steps led him to yet another cleric, who, in a panicked silence, took several steps backward.

"My lord," called Cedric, almost running toward the hill. "Commander!"

"What is it, Cedric," the commander answered.

"That was our fourth cleric," Cedric said, breathless. "A thousand Inferi, my lord. We have enough."

"One can never be sure in a war and I shan't leave this to chance," the commander's tone was dismissive. "Two nights already have we been laying siege to that accursed tower. Our main forces arrive by the morrow. We clear their path to Ravenclaw."

Cedric's gaze searched him. "With respect, commander, if this is about that boy..."

The commander removed a dagger from his belt. Its pommel rammed into Cedric's nose. Cedric swayed a little on his feet, pinching his nose when blood began dripping soon after. "Don't overstep your place, Cedric," his superior said, the dagger still in his hand. "I trust you know I was lenient."

The commander turned from Cedric and extended a hand to the cleric. "Come, you are needed."

A youthful face emerged from under the white clerical hood. It was a girl barely into womanhood, desperately clasping the pendant around her neck. She directed her tearful eyes at Cedric. "Please... please."

"Commander—Harry, my friend," called Cedric, "Please."

The reference of friendship did nothing to stop Harry. He ignored Cedric and addressed the cleric, "What's that you're holding?"

The cleric opened her hands to reveal a golden pendant in the shape of a phoenix.

Harry clasped his hands over the trinket. " _Blessed are those that walk in the flames, for they shall soar with the Phoenix our Lord..._ are those not the words of Prophet Albus?"

The cleric tried to pull her hands from Harry's grasp with no avail. "No, I can't... I wasn't told. I'd never have come..."

Harry's hand fell on the hilt of his sword. "I'd rather you do this willingly. As a proud chaplain of the Gryffindor Empire."

Tears streamed down the cleric's cheeks and she removed the pendant from her neck. "You'll find my name on the wings," she said, giving it to Cedric. "For my mother."

Cedric's fingers whitened as he fisted the pendant.

"I will personally inform the Emperor of your loyalty. I give you my word, I'll see that your family is handsomely rewarded," said Harry to the cleric.

Cedric stood rooted as the cleric took Harry's elbow. Moments after they headed downhill, Cedric saw another burst of flame. The guttural moans of the shambling army grew louder and louder, echoing through the valley.

* * *

One, two, and four. They'd agreed on seven knocks. Hermione nodded to the guards when she heard the knocks on the gates.

Sir Ronald limped in along with his men, dragging his two-hander behind him in laboured breaths. Blood oozed out of his blackened right eye and a tourniquet bound the stump of his sword arm. Torn strips of flesh hung from it; the cut wasn't clean. Ronald's arm wasn't hacked, but torn off, Hermione realised.

"Ron!" Draco ran to his side. Ron dropped his sword, embracing Draco with his left arm.

"I'm alive," he whispered, brushing his nose on Draco's forehead.

Hermione yanked Draco's cloak harshly. "You'll be less so each moment. And Draco, step aside if you won't help. You're killing the man."

Draco removed the tourniquet and Ron let out a deafening scream when the straps touched the wound. His fingers dug into Draco's ribs. "It's going to pass," Draco's face paled seeing Ron's eyes bulging with pain. Hermione forced a cloth between Ron's teeth. His bite on Hermione's knuckles plucked a litany of profanity from her.

"Where's your arm," Hermione demanded, dabbing her fingers on her bosom. Ron merely shook his head, breath hitching. Hermione gave him a look of frustrated pity. The rims of her eyes reddened before she finally nodded to Draco, who took her unspoken words with lips set in determination.

"We have no choice, I'll close the wound. Bear with me," Draco said. His hand hovered on the injury, which soon knitted itself to form a healed stump. "A miracle can't be undone. Even if we find your arm, I won't be able to reattach it."

Ron's tunic was wet with grime and cold sweat. "My sword arm," he said with a humourless laugh. "You'd have a better chance if you leave me here. Now I'm useless."

"I'll be the judge of that when we make it out of this place." She produced a leather pouch and fished out a strip of what looked like salted meat.

"I'm not eating that," Ron said, his eyes were bloodshot from the fatigue of the battlefield, but his hand ghosted affectionately on Draco's waist. "I'm fine now."

The dried meat hit Ron's face and fell on Draco's lap. "Very well then. I won't be troubled further," yelled Hermione. She tied the pouch back to her belt. "You can head out there and kill yourself, but you won't find me concerned in the least."

Draco inched away from the Sentinel's side. "Ron," was the single admonishing word from him. He healed Ron's bleeding eye in marked apathy and busied himself by helping Hermione sorting her herbs on the stone floor.

Ron picked up the piece of meat and stared at it for a long time. His insides churned at the sight but Ron swallowed the sour taste back. He closed his eyes, taking a large bite of the meat. He braced for the inevitable and indeed it struck him with a force for which he could never have prepared himself enough. Tears stung Sir Ronald's eyes. The vile smell assaulted his nose and clung on his throat even after he swallowed the infernal thing. For a moment the ceilings dimmed, chilling his senses. He thought he would keel over when Hermione's firm grasp on his shoulders steadied him. When it ended, Ron breathed heavily and kicked the rest of the dried meat away. Draco found it and wrapped it in a piece of torn linen.

"Couldn't you have dealt with the taste?" asked Sir Ronald.

"It's not taste; it's closer to pain. The idea is to purge the lingering rot from your body with the venom."

"Phoenix bless me. Yes, with the venom of a dried Lobalug."

"Diluted to perfection," Hermione said. "I know what I do. But do tell, what happened?"

The question took what little respite permitted to Sir Ronald as his thoughts touched upon their prospect. Here they were, isolated in a tower with no more than a dozen defenders. He was now a swordsman without a sword arm. Hermione was a herbalist whose only experience with the blade was to duel stalks and spleens. Ron's gaze fell on Draco, who was healing the soldiers and blessing those who were wounded more in spirit than in body. _No_ , Sir Ronald thought, _I can't ask him to fight._

 _For what?_ His own voice asked back. _For lust? That passing fancy so readily named 'love'? A couple of clerics can wipe out an army. Give it a try. Save lives. Why keep a weapon if you are not using it? The Phoenix helps those who help themselves._

"Ron. We need to know the situation," Hermione asked once more when a soldier sitting huddled in the corner came into her vision. His teeth chattered and his limbs flailed wildly. He _looked_ at nothing, but _stared_ far, far away beyond the grey stone walls of the tower. "Tell me what happened," Hermione repeated. Her alarmed voice reached Draco, who approached them after healing his last supplicant.

Draco's presence made Sir Ronald uncomfortable, but he could not ask him to leave.

"Corpses," Ron said. "They're using corpses."

Hermione tapped her feet impatiently. "For what? Have they corrupted the river with the bodies?"

"Living corpses, Mione," Ron answered, a great shudder running through his spine.

"If you'd just make us understand," Hermione toyed with her herbal pouch as was her angry habit. The pouch was at the point of bursting at the seams from the number of odds and ends stuffed in it. Hermione claimed every one of them was important.

"My men and I were scouting the perimeters. Corpses, living--I know it is hard to imagine, but there they were. Hundreds of them, marching at us. They got to us faster than we could retreat. We pelted them with arrows. We ran them through with swords. Nothing worked. I left two men behind. Don't ask how they died."

"That means... it's a miracle of some sort." The picture of living corpses did not come to Hermione as vividly as they were etched into Sir Ronald's mind.

"We're cornered. I hope you've thought of a way out while we were out there," said Ron. "Where are the other clerics?"

"Upstairs, still planning. Let's not lose heart yet."

"We need more than pretty words, Hermione!" Ron slammed the flagstone of the floor. The steel of his gauntlet met stone, sending an eerie _clang_ that reverberated around the hall. Soldiers flinched and looked up. The shaking soldier in the corner of the hall started shrieking. Hermione took out a vial from her pouch and motioned at two men to assist her. They held the man down as she poured the potion down his throat. 

Left between themselves, Draco squatted before Ron, meeting his eyes. "I'm sorry you had to see such horrors while we sat here in comfort," he said. "I'll fight in the next battle."

"You can't," replied Ron. He tried to shed his gauntlet with difficulty. When Draco undid the straps and knots of the Sentinel's gauntlet, Ron brought a hand to Draco's cheek, brushing away a smudge of dirt. He scoffed at himself when the gesture simply spread the smudge wider. "You can't fight, Draco. You're not brave enough."

Draco's lips twisted in a bitter sneer. "I'd have taken that as an insult if it came from any other man. It seems our time together has proved that at least."

"It did, abundantly. You're not an asset on the battlefield. You're not made to see steel rending flesh from bone."

Draco's sneer turned into a full smile. Sir Ronald could feel his heart quickening in apprehension. "I know what you're doing, Weasley," Draco said. "Oh, I missed your leg. My apologies." A pale light shone under Draco's palm, mending the sprained ankle as good as new.

"What," Ron asked. He waited until it was clear Draco wasn't going to reply, so he took his hand into his. "What am I doing?"

"You were never a consummate liar. You're trying to keep me away."

"Draco, I--"

"You saw him, didn't you. He's here." Draco's remark wasn't a question, but a statement. "That's why you're trying so hard. It won't work this time, Ron. I've got to see him. It's my battle to fight."

Ron closed his eyes around a stab of pain. It was hard acknowledging there was a connection between Draco and _him_ that surpassed that of his own.

Knight-Auror Potter. He was watching from far on top of the hill while the corpses tore two of Ron's men apart. He was too far, but Ron knew it was him. Sir Ronald could care less about the lives of everyone else in the tower. The rest were pawns. He resolved to get Draco and Hermione out before the Demon of Gryffindor could set his eyes on Draco.

If he had not already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lobalug is a venomous animal from Fantastic Beasts


	2. Where It All Began

The morning sun shone through the open window and a beam of light fell on Draco's eyes, drawing incoherent mumbles from the sleeping cleric. For eighteen years had Draco known the familiar warmth, yet it wasn't enough to wake him every morning. Feeling the sun burning his sleep away, Draco hid his head under the blanket, only to find it whisked back. He rose and blinked blearily at the unwelcome trespasser. Draco threw a pillow at the intruder when bright red hair and a face full of freckles came into his vision. The pillow missed its mark to hit the stack of scrolls on Draco's desk instead. They fell and scattered. A scroll of parchment rolled under the bed.

"Glad I didn't put this there," greeted Sir Ronald Weasley, placing a steaming washbowl on the now-empty desk. He dove down to find the wayward scroll and piled the rest at Draco's feet on the bed.

After serving as a Sentinel for eight long years, Sir Ronald had finally mastered the art of patience where clerics were concerned. He had refined the impossible techniques of tackling Draco's morning tantrums with smiles, his afternoon caprice with silence, and the nightly errands with deference. That was not to say he hadn't despaired when Draco Malfoy, every Sentinel's nightmare, was assigned to him. He had never been backhanded by anyone save his brothers until Draco slapped him eight years ago. _Drink,_ a ten-year-old Draco had pointed to the washbowl the first day Ron served him. _You brought me_ _lukewarm water. Drink_ _._ But _s_ oon as the word of refusal left Ron's mouth, a splash of water and a smarting slap landed on his cheek in quick succession. Ron would not suffer an imp of a child lord over him, so he had taught the little wretch the way of the world.

As it turned out, young Ron himself had had much to learn about the world of pain. They had put him to twenty lashes on the bare back for attacking a cleric. Ron was seventeen. He had learnt then; Sentinels weren't so noble as he'd been told. Returning to Draco's room, Ron had found the boy sniffling over a slight bruise on the jaw, while he was feverish from the twenty rips the whip had torn on his back. The fever had borne Ron into a fitful sleep; he could not stop his body crumpling where he stood watch. He had also learnt that night; one was never too old to miss one's mother.

The wounds on his back had disappeared without leaving even a scratch the next day. Ron asked Draco whether a cleric saw to him during the night. Draco had sniffed then and avoided meeting the Sentinel's eyes. Neither talked of it again. The washbowls brought to Draco's room had been steaming hot ever since.

Like any other day, Draco stepped into the slippers Ron held out for him. A silence flowed between them while Draco waited for the water to cool to his liking. Feeling the temperature of the water, Draco measured out a cup from the basin before he washed his face. Next to him, Ron poured some cloves and pieces of charcoal into a mortar and ground them. After drying his face with soft linen, Draco pinched a liberal amount out of the salt jar. Ron thought of his family's hovel as Draco dusted his fingers into the mortar. His mother had never bemoaned their poverty, but she would lose her pace passing by the salt merchant on market days.

"You don't need that much," Ron said. The white of the salt covered the black of the charcoal and the cloves completely.

Draco gave him a withering look. "I wonder, Weasley, would you shut up if I sent your mother a bag of salt?"

Draco's quips about his mother were frequent, but this one grated on Ron's unprepared nerves. Draco had a devilish talent to single out and stab where it hurt most. Ron drew a furtive breath and managed a pleasant "She would appreciate that."

An even sweeter smile met Ron's grin, but this time the Sentinel stood firm, for he knew a viper lay poised to strike behind that guise of innocence. He knew and yet sometimes he let his guard down. "Are you sure about that? Your ears are red," sneered Draco, peering up at Ron through his eyelashes. He snatched the mortar from Ron, who considered dropping it but abandoned the risky notion. He watched Draco cleaning his teeth with a horsetail brush. Draco rinsed his mouth with the cup of water he had set aside and spat unceremoniously into the washbowl.

"Look away," the cleric commanded when he was done. That they were both men seemed not to lessen Draco's embarrassment. Ron obeyed as Draco tried to pull his nightshirt over his head and failed; the linen bunched under his earlobes. "Don't just stand there, you imbecile," Draco yelled, his previous command forgotten. "Help me out of this thing!"

Ron took the opportunity, letting his gaze travel down a pale torso that revealed itself. For a moment, he held the nightshirt in place without peeling it from Draco. He gazed at the cleric's taut belly and the hollow of his navel, down to the blond curls that obscured his manhood. Draco's morning lavations had become more than just a routine. They made Ron's chest swell with a tingling sensation. They made Draco's temper somewhat bearable. A Sentinel had told him, _takes a miracle to tame your cleric._ Ron's thoughts had dallied around _my cler_ _ic._ He was chillingly clear about what it was that he felt. It felt like the way his loins fluttered at the servant girls watching the Sentinels training, only more persistent and tender. When the picture of Draco's milky skin came to his mind, sometimes Ron's sword would clonk on the rusted pauldrons of the dummy instead of severing the neck for which he aimed.

Ron pulled the nightshirt away and laid it neatly on Draco's bed. Next, came the arduous task of dressing Draco, who had already begun grumbling. "It's cold and you're slow."

 _Phoenix's Beak_ , thought Ron, _he's a right pain this morning._ Yet this did not stop his eyes from darting to Draco when he thought the cleric wasn't looking. Draco's nakedness was his to look, and this Ron took as a sweet, sweet reprieve that accompanied the burden of his duty. His brief cheer, however, soured because Draco did not forget to deliver the choicest remarks about Ron's family with each piece of clothing he snagged from his Sentinel.

"Do not follow me today," Draco said. He hung the Phoenix pendant of the priesthood around his neck. One wing bore his name, while on the other was inscribed the name of his bloodline.

Draco's trifling of the taboo snuffed out the last of Ron's patience. "Dementors take you then," he bellowed. He shoved his ward into the wall, feeling powerful and satisfied letting loose his pent-up rage. But when he saw Draco's silver eyes rounding and nervous, he almost instantly regretted the outburst. He stepped back and gave Draco a wide berth as much as the room allowed.

Draco stood leaning on the wall. His heart hammered somewhere between fear and perplexity; he had not heard his caretaker's voice raised lately. He had half a mind to empty the washbowl on Ron's egregious ginger head, but he simply pursed his lips instead and left the room for the corridor. Ron quickly narrowed the gap and tailed him some five steps behind. 

Draco rounded on Ron. "Is it too much to hope for a--"

The corridor was full of clerics robed in white, their Sentinels watching them like hawks. Ron missed Draco's words amidst the noises. He asked him to repeat, but Draco did not answer.

* * *

Harry had been certain, he was never one to mislike his duty.

He had never been one to stick to the rules either, but it was simply because rules had to bend to make room for results.

Harry was not too sure whether this would count as a result. The cleric in the cart hadn't resisted when Aurors fell upon him. His white clerical robe was dirty with spots brown like his mousy hair and eyes. His tracks had told them that he'd been wandering in the wilds. The cleric had only taken a small bite of the rabbit before Commander Robards took it from him and flung it afar. His sunken eyes had followed the burnt rabbit across the sky. Their eyes met briefly--Harry saw hunger and surrender. When the cleric raised a hand skyward, Robards gave the order to draw their blades. They'd been prepared to strike the cleric dead before he could perform a miracle, but nothing rained down on their heads; the cleric had merely covered himself from the sun. He stepped into the prisoner cart on his own accord.

Robards broke the silence that followed. "You are to be brought back to the Alabaster Library."

"My Triad," the prisoner's bony fingers curled around the bars of his cage. "Are they unharmed?"

"For the time being. But you know what awaits those who fail to watch over their cleric," Robards answered grimly. "You made a grave mistake when you left those walls."

"They had no part in my escape," the shaken cleric said, "I'm coming with you willingly."

"You would have come one way or the other," Lord John Dawlish retorted, resting a palm on the grip of his blade. His severe demeanour mirrored his ice-cold eyes and stone-grey hair. He was one of those men that took a rule broken as the fissure to the ruin of all. A table with a Dawlish needed a whole barrel of wine to thaw, an Auror once said to Harry. Dawlish never missed a morning prayer, and his wife was always the first lady to leave evening parties.

"Your Sentinel is waiting for your return at the Library," told Harry, more to spite Dawlish than to reassure the cleric. It was men such as this that kept the Empire stagnant, he thought; men bound by rules were no better than puppets strung on a ventriloquist's hand.

The cleric blessed Harry for the answer. "May the Phoenix light your path." Dawlish glared at them both.

"My lord, tell me this," the cleric continued, "What about my Chronicler?"

This time, Harry averted his gaze and looked ahead. Death was by no means a stranger to him, but it left an aftertaste that clenched his chest with guilt.

"He is dead," Dawlish spat with a sinister apathy that tightened Harry's grip on his sword. "We found the fugitive in hiding. He resisted, a dagger in hand."

Harry didn't correct Dawlish's lie. The scholar hadn't resisted. He had been trimming his manuscript with no more than a penknife when they found him. He'd attempted to flee through the window, and Dawlish skewered him through the back. Hunched over the windowsill, the Chronicler was still writhing, so Harry put him out of his misery. Commander Robards gave Dawlish a disapproving leer, and that was the end of it.

For the length of their journey, the cleric remained silent. The sun had fully risen when they reached the Imperial City; Harry's eyes were scrunched from the blinding reflection on the golden statue of the Phoenix shading the gate under its wings. Guards saluted, noting the breastplates of the Aurors that bore the Lion of Gryffindor. As they passed through the city, commoners fell to their knees and cried for miracles.

"By the Phoenix, I beg you, a miracle for my father, he suffers..."

"My teats are dry and my baby is hungry!"

Some were less desperate. "Three daughters in a row, let it be a son this time!"

Some, angrier. "Look at me, cleric! Are you blind? Do you want gold? Look here! My blood isn't blue enough, is that it?"

The throng of citizens was getting thicker by the minute, but none dared to stand in their way. The roaring pleas of the people followed them all the way until the ivory-white gate of the Library opened to admit them.

* * *

"There's something you should know." Draco heard Hermione's bouncy steps approaching. It is an everyday mystery, truly, Draco thought, how his Chronicler kept lice away from her forest of a head. Draco noticed she had neither tome nor scroll under her armpit, and this meant she came in a hurry, although he couldn't care less. He scoffed as Sir Ronald and Hermione greeted each other with a nod.

"Granger. How peculiar to see you outside the reading halls. Enjoying the gardens?" Draco peered intently into his _Lives and Acts of the Prophets._

Hermione snatched the tome and set it down on a rock. The rich leather cover closed on the parchment pages with a soft _thud_.

"What are you doing?" Draco raised his eyebrows and feigned a look of outrage. "You are a Chronicler. Did they not teach you to treasure books out there?"

Hermione threw the tome to Ron. He caught it with a hand, letting an unstifled laugh escape his mouth. Hermione was one of the few people in the Library who could put Draco in his place without resorting to the Grand Librarian. "We all know that's the one book you'll never read, so stop pretending," she said. "Now, listen--"

Draco stood from the bench, sneering at Hermione's hair. "Thank you, Granger, but I'm afraid another bush added won't make the gardens prettier." He stomped toward a fountain and perched on the edge. A ball of water came flying at Ron, who stopped as he tried to close the distance. It burst above him. Water streamed from his hair and soaked the doublet under his armour.

"He's worse than usual," sighed Hermione.

Ron shook his head, a frustrated line marring his forehead. "He didn't want me following him today. We argued."

The invisible twitch of Hermione's nostrils suggested she was not convinced.

"Fine, I lost it. I pushed him to the wall. He was bent on angering me," explained Ron. "You can't say you blame me."

Hermione watched Draco dipping a hand in the water. "I don't blame you. A man-sized child is more than a handful. But aren't clerics like that here? It tends to happen when you're confined in a castle all your life."

"Eight years, Mione, I delivered his washbowls and emptied his chamberpots, I watched him _grow_. And I--"

Hermione waited quietly for Ron to finish. When no reply came, she turned her back on him. "I have a fair idea of what you were going to say. I don't relish the thought, Ron, and let it stay a thought if you know what's good for us all." She looked back once, and added, "Aurors found the runaway. His Chronicler's been killed. He and his Sentinel will be sentenced here, and we're to watch his Triad dissolved."

Ron wiped his wet hair back. He cast a worried glance toward Draco. "Who told you?"

"I saw. McGonagall received them. It won't be long before word spreads, so I wanted our Triad ready before everyone else."

Hermione headed to the fountain and sat next to Draco. Another ball of water floated, but it did not hover above her head as it did Ron's. The transparent sphere rotated on Draco's hand, slowing down as Hermione relayed the news. It came to a complete halt by the time Hermione had finished speaking, falling on Draco's lap with an ominous splash.


End file.
